Easy and Delicious Homemade Pesto

Each summer I plant a huge pot of basil and look forward to making homemade pesto but this year I never got around to planting any.  I was really missing that yummy flavor of my own homemade pesto so when I saw a huge bunch of basil on sale at the grocery store I didn't even hesitate.

Now I have a whole jar of easy and delicious homemade pesto!

To make homemade pesto you will need:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 bunch fresh basil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup pecans
1 tbsp minced garlic

I don't typically measure how much basil I am putting in my food processor but typically one large bundle will fill the food processor.  I use just the leaves and make sure to keep most of the stems out of it.

I usually add 1/4 cup olive oil to the large batch of leaves and let the food processor grind them up.  I only add half the amount of oil I think I'll need because this allows me to adjust the recipe and not end up with an oily mess that I don't want to eat.

I remove the lid, check to see how wet or dry my pesto sauce is looking and add 1/4 cup pecan halves and 1 tablespoons of minced fresh garlic.

I also add the grated Parmesan and since my pesto still looked like dry leaves I did use the entire remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil.   

After I blended everything together I was left with a smooth and creamy pesto sauce.

I just poured it all into a small canning jar and, after using a few tablespoons for a dinner recipe, put the jar in the freezer for fresh pesto pasta we want.